What I Need to Know. By "I," I mean my kids.

This is a boring blog post. Essential to my philosophy on parenting, yes, but boring, nevertheless (as most essential things are). Consider yourself warned.

By the request of my sister, I have created and am posting my Teach Your Kid This Stuff So They Will Be Competent Happy Adults and Won’t Live With You For the Rest of Their Lives List

Let’s just call it the “What I Need to Know” list for short. Yeah, I know the titles don’t match.

And here’s a disclaimer: it’s not my brainchild. The idea came from one of my favorite parenting books, The Parenting Breakthrough, by Merrilee Boyack. It’s a great read. I highly recommend it.

Back to the list. What you do is write down everything your kid needs to know by they time they leave home and then break it up into appropriate age categories. In my family, we pull these out about once a year, usually in the summer, and my kids love crossing off the stuff they know how to do. Here’s a pic of our old lists:

However, if you don’t have time to write your own lists, never fear. Here is my snazzy new list, available for purchase on my Etsy shop, StefHohlCreations. After printing, just laminate onto a manila folder for durability, and write your child’s name on the tab. Voila:

Or, just staple it together and call it good. As seen here:

Remember, nothing is set in stone on these lists. Every child develops differently and the age lists are just recommendations. Often my kids will cross off things on various ages all at once. It just provides a nice general outline and reminder of what your child needs to learn by the time they leave home. And honestly, by the time you get to your 5th kid, sometimes you forget to teach him stuff. Like his ABCs. So this helps. And the TV also helps. At least with ABCs. Okay, bye.